Anderson: Why the impeachment (inquiry) is necessary

Sunday

Sep 29, 2019 at 12:01 AM

The chaos erupting in Washington, D.C. is probably the worst — in a season of “worsts” — we’ve seen thus far, and its not likely to be over soon.

To label the political season of the past two years a brutal anarchic era is to miss the point, perhaps entirely. From day one of this administration, the government apparatus has been off-balance, wrong-footed, jerked around by layers of nonsense and rhetoric, stymied by static inertia, neck-wrenched and whipped around by a vortex of obfuscation and babbling drivel. I’ve officially run out of expletives. Any description of the past two years is likely to be seen as feeble in terms of adjectives anyway — especially so, now that the first real moves towards impeachment are actually taking place.

Impeachment has been the battle cry of electoral losers for much of the post-Eisenhower period in American history — of presidents: Obama, both Bushes, Clinton (who actually was impeached, though acquitted), Reagan, Carter, and even Ford, a placid, appointed time-server (primarily for his pardoning of another president threatened with impeachment, Richard Nixon — who fled like a bunny from a loud noise rather than battle it out in the Senate).

The drumbeat to impeach President Donald Trump began before his ascension, continued during his anointing, and slowly rose over the past two years of his administration as he continued to prove to all that he was, in fact, nothing less than the person who had campaigned for that office.

The rallying cries for impeachment from Democrats reached an almost-fever pitch after the 2018 election; the newly-Democratic House of Representatives is where all inquiries for impeachment must begin, though a trial, if required, is held in the Senate. Despite the vitriol of the rhetoric, it remained only talk.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who fought off her own removal initiated by the same lefty Democratic faction, prevailed on the chamber to get to work, and to shelve the notion of impeaching anyone — at least for the time being.

With the release of the Mueller report, all impeachment talk recoiled into the same old politico-babble, with little real support. Until last week. When records surfaced, through a highly-placed whistleblower, of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

These early (fragmentary, incomplete, shadowy) records at least suggested that Trump may have been pressuring Zelensky to investigate the activities of a political rival — and possibly used the threat of the withdrawal of American aid as a strangle point. If true, particularly if there were an express “quid pro quo” implicit in these communications, then it probably rises to the level of an impeachable offense.

What has followed since is a rapid-fire series of new revelations, the release of first a rough transcription of the phone call, then a redacted version of the cover sheets for the whistleblower’s full complaint, testimony to Congress by the Director of National Intelligence. With this came a growing sense that the more that was uncovered, the more disturbing the news became.

What is certain is this: nothing.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “Really troubling things here. Republicans ought not just circle the wagons, and [D]emocrats ought not have been using words like impeachment before they knew anything about the actual substance.”

The rush to impeachment was ill considered as to purpose, but spot-on in terms of its probable (though tiresomely eventual) effect.

As one who has argued against any sort of impeachment proceedings to date, I now find myself in the unenviable position of saying that an inquiry must be held — whether or not this leads to an eventual trial is very much up in the air; and if it were held, the outcome in a GOP-controlled Senate is pretty much preordained.

The purpose of the inquiry is not, necessarily, to remove the president, but rather to filter, consider, sort and otherwise clarify what has become a flood of unsorted, unclarified, unfiltered information — much of which is of questionable validity, questionable provenance, and questionable value.

The committees of the House, if performing their constitutional duties properly and executing these duties under the closest scrutiny imaginable, will do this sorting, filtering, and clarifying.

Any process that leads to great lucidity, intelligibility and transparency at this stage is to be encouraged. Both parties must participate. That this might also result in a sharper line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior by the executive branch would also be a major side benefit.

R. Bruce Anderson (randerson2@flsouthern.edu) is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics at Florida Southern College in Lakeland.

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